AUSTIN, TX and BELLEVUE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / August 15, 2024 / Private fusion energy innovator ExoFusion has announced receipt of a prestigious INFUSE public-private partnership award as well as a trifecta of scientific breakthroughs, helping pave the way to Commercially Viable Fusion (CVF).
The INFUSE award was granted for "Testing Novel Liquid Metal PFC compositions" alongside ExoFusion's partner Penn State University. This test bed is valuable for the company's patent-pending liquid-metal innovation for Plasma-Facing Components, which are crucial to high-confinement regimes necessary for CVF.
ExoFusion Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Mike Kotschenreuther said, "The INFUSE award is a boon to ExoFusion as we seek to help the industry re-think its approach to Plasma-Facing Components. PFCs are not to be seen in isolation from plasma dynamics and confinement; we have created a ‘daisy chain' of innovations that lead to smaller, cheaper and more effective FPPs."
ExoFusion's fundamental scientific breakthroughs fall into three categories:
Transport Barriers
CVF requires that core of a plasma hot enough for fusion, which is inconceivably hotter than the material walls. This situation runs smack into a nearly universal tendency in physics: huge temperature differences lead to turbulence that causes heat to leak out. This would cool the core, and fusion would stop. In fusion plasmas however, with proper conditions, turbulence can be prevented. ExoFusion's published findings are essential to reveal that this is generalizable, opening the door to a variety of possibilities, across machine types.
Confinement Data Analysis
Experimental data for tokamaks is consistent with the Transport Barrier (TB) findings above. A detailed analysis of the data shows, for the first time, that multiple patterns in the data exactly fit with the scientific picture drawn by the team. The ExoFusion team devised and patented the Super-XT Divertor ™, to allow higher confinement in fusion relevant conditions. The analysis of the data shows that the operating regime of the Super-XT Divertor ™ do indeed lead to very high confinement.
Space Thruster Breakthroughs
As space travel enters a new era, new types of thrusters become crucial. Instead of relying upon
chemical reactions, much higher energy plasma becomes necessary for many missions. This includes 1) extending the lifetime of conventional satellites 2) extending the orbital operating envelope of satellites 3) interplanetary and lunar missions. However, the higher energy plasma also leads to a serious problem that is well known in the arena of magnetic fusion: excessive erosion of material surfaces. This limits the thruster's lifetime and performance. ExoFusion has developed solutions for this for fusion energy-- using specially tailored liquid metal alloys. The same kinds of solution can also be used for space thrusters, to make them capable of hosting more ambitious missions.
Of these, the Transport Barrier and Data Analysis work continues to support ExoFusion's scientific thesis that the "key is confinement." The space thruster work demonstrates the portability and scalability of the company's work on novel liquid metals.
According to CEO Romi Mahajan, "These breakthroughs are consistent with our scientific leadership and our approach- both business and scientific. We continue to create solutions that the industry- as a whole- can benefit from, as we collectively march towards CVF."
Boilerplate-
ExoFusion accelerates the path to Commercially Viable Fusion. With the latest science and proprietary innovation in confinement, ExoFusion's design, and simulations backed by IP, significantly reduces the cost, time, and scale to achieve CVF. Led by world-renowned physicists, technology commercializers, marketers and finance experts, ExoFusion is making significant breakthroughs in the goal to realize CVF.
Contact:
Romi Mahajan
romi@thekkmgroup.com
4255917664
SOURCE: ExoFusion
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